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Contemporary Ethics

Code: 100283 ECTS Credits: 6
2025/2026
Degree Type Year
Philosophy OB 3

Contact

Name:
Olga Fernandez Prat
Email:
olga.fernandez@uab.cat

Teachers

Jordi Riba Miralles

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

No requirement

Objectives and Contextualisation

General objectives:

· To familiarize students with the main currents of contemporary ethics and their modern roots.
· To critically analyze the key concepts, arguments, and ethical dilemmas in recent philosophical thought.
· To enable students to apply ethical theories to current social, political, and technoscientific issues.

Specific objectives:

· To know and understand the main theories and figures of contemporary ethics.
· To analyze fundamental concepts in contemporary ethics: responsibility, vulnerability, care, etc.
· To apply ethical theoretical models to concrete cases and current debates.
· To develop skills in ethical argumentation and deliberation in both individual and collective contexts.


Competences

  • Analysing and summarising the main arguments of fundamental texts of philosophy in its various disciplines.
  • Applying the knowledge of ethics to the moral problems of society, and assessing the implications about the human condition of changes in the world of contemporary techniques.
  • Recognising and interpreting topics and problems of philosophy in its various disciplines.
  • Recognising the philosophical implications of the scientific knowledge.
  • Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
  • Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Ability to maintain an appropriate conversation.
  2. Accurately drawing up normative texts.
  3. Accurately using the specific lexicon of the history of philosophy.
  4. Analysing the main ethical concepts in the current moral dilemmas.
  5. Assessing a concrete ethical position, in the context of the current world's problems.
  6. Assessing the legitimacy of the thesis defended by participants of the most important contemporary controversies.
  7. Assessing the philosophical importance of several factors of current social conflicts.
  8. Autonomously searching, selecting and processing information both from structured sources (databases, bibliographies, specialized magazines) and from across the network.
  9. Carrying out oral presentations using an appropriate academic vocabulary and style.
  10. Effectively communicating and applying the argumentative and textual processes to formal and scientific texts.
  11. Establishing relationships between science, philosophy, art, religion, politics, etc.
  12. Explaining the philosophical importance of contemporary science and its implementation area.
  13. Judging the moral impact of new technological developments on humans.
  14. Reading basic philosophical text thoroughly.
  15. Relating the characteristic elements and factors of the philosophical tradition.
  16. Students must develop the necessary learning skills to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
  17. Summarising the main arguments of the great contemporary texts of ethics and political philosophy.
  18. Summarising the topics and arguments exposed in a classical philosophical debate.
  19. Using suitable terminology when drawing up an academic text.

Content

1. The philosophical crisis of the nineteenth century and its effect on practical philosophy 

2. The construction of moral individuality: Schleiermacher, Stirner, Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard. 

3. Criticism of the Kantian moral imperative: Nietzsche, Guyau, Durkheim and Simmel 

4. From the morals of duty to the morals of responsibility: Guyau, Simmel, Weber 

5. The sociologization of morality: Durkheim, Levy-Bruhl 

6. Ethics amb Fenomenology: Scheller, Sartre and Levinas

7. From ethics to politics: Arendt, Rancière, Badiou


Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Comment, expose texts 45 1.8 8, 2, 11, 12, 10, 9, 19, 14, 1, 15, 18, 3
Type: Supervised      
Tutorials 20 0.8 4, 12, 5, 13, 7, 18
Type: Autonomous      
Classes, explanation of texts 70 2.8 10, 9, 13, 14, 1, 3

The course methodology will based strictly on continuous and joint assessment of the subject:

1) Students will undertake comprehensive readings of seminal texts on topics related to the subject as preparation for participation in formal discussion sessions. These texts will be made available to students via the virtual campus one week before the joint discussion class.

2) The teacher will provide theoretical explanations about key points of the subject syllabus.

3) Under the teacher's supervision, the students will choose one topic from the syllabus and give a group oral presentation about it.

 

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Oral presentation in group 40% 6 0.24 4, 12, 10, 9, 19, 6, 5, 13, 14, 1, 7, 17, 18, 3
Text comment1 20% 2 0.08 4, 8, 2, 11, 10, 9, 19, 6, 5, 14, 1, 7, 16, 15, 17, 18, 3
Text comment2 40% 7 0.28 4, 8, 2, 11, 12, 19, 6, 5, 13, 14, 7, 16, 15, 17, 18, 3

  • The evaluation process includes three activities distributed throughout the course: text commentary 1 (20%), text commentary 2 (40%), group oral presentation (40%).

The single evaluation will be a written exam consisting of three parts:

  • Short answer questions based on the first part of the course (40%)

  • Short answer questions based on the second part of the course (40%)

  • Text commentary (20%)

It is possible that the Philosophy Department will establish (as was done during the first semester) a concentrated period for evaluative exams. The teaching staff will indicate if this period exists or what the exam dates are at the start of each course.

Retake:
· Synthesis exam for both continuous and single evaluation.

Students will receive a “Not assessable” grade if they have not submitted more than one-third of the evaluation activities.

OBSERVATIONS

· Erasmus students who request to take an exam early must present the professor with a written document from their home university justifying their request.

· If a student commits any irregularity that may lead to a significant change in the grade of an evaluation activity, that activity will be graded as 0, regardless of any disciplinary process that may be initiated. If multiple irregularities occur in evaluation activities for the same subject, the final grade for that subject will be 0.

· In this subject, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies is not allowed in any phase. Any work that includes AI-generated fragments will be considered academic dishonesty and will result in the activity being graded 0 without the possibility of recovery, or more severe sanctions in serious cases.


Bibliography

 

Bergson, H. Las dos fuentes de la moral , Madrid, Tecnos, 

Feuerbach, L. Manifestos Antropológicos,

Guyau, J-M. Esbozo de una moral sin obligación ni sanción, ed. Descontrol, Barcelona, 2015.

Guyau, J-M. Esquisse d'une morale sans obligation ni sanction, Payot, Paris, 2012..

Kierkegaard, S. Las obras del amor, Sígueme, Salamanca, 2006.

Kropotkin, P. Ètica, Júcar, Avilés, 1976.

Nietzsche, F. Genealogia de la moral , Madrid, Alianza, 

Schleiermacher, Monólogos, Barcelona, Anthropos, 

Schopenhauer, A. Los dos problemas fundamentales de la ética, Madrid, SigloXXI, 2002.

Simmel, G. La ley individual, Paidós, Barcelona, 2005.

Stirner, El único y su propiedad.

 

Bibliografía complementaria: 

 

Andolfi, F. La ética de Schleiermacher, 

Brentano, F, Las razones del desaliento en la filosofía, Madrid, Encuentro, 2010.

Brentano, F. El porvenir de la filosofía, Salamanca, Encuentro, …

Freuler, L, La crise de la philosophie au XIX siècle, Vrin, Paris, 1997.

Lipovetski, G. El ocaso del deber, Barcelona, Anagrama, 

Löwith, K. de Hegel a Nietzsche, 

Riba, J. “Hijos de Kant” Intrducción a Simmel, G. La Ley individual, Barcelona, Paidós, 2005.

Simmel, G. Las dos formas del individualismo, en Simmel, G. La Ley individual, Barcelona, Paidós, 2005.

 


Software

no program required


Groups and Languages

Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2025. You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject.

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(PAUL) Classroom practices 1 Catalan second semester morning-mixed
(TE) Theory 1 Catalan second semester morning-mixed